42:13:04 N
74:37:53 W
We've been home for almost a week now. We kept meaning to post some sort of
update, and of course never got around to it. Today I received an email from
Norm Wolfe, a Shallow Water Sailor, asking how was our homecoming, and what
would we have done differently on the trip, what would I change on the boat,
etc.? I started a quick email to him, which turned into a long email, so I
figure I may as well take the lazy way and copy-and-paste it here, with a few
additions. I know Lilly has a lot to say that is more thoughtful and less
technical in nature. I hope she'll get to add that soon.
I drove the car and trailer home; Lilly and the girls flew back to
LaGuardia, and then went to the home of our friends Sharene and Matt in Pelham,
where she had left our car. The emergency brake had frozen in our absence. With
a lot of WD-40 and several hours of work, Lilly and Matt got it to release. We
all got home on April 17. That afternoon and through the evening, we had a few
snow flurries.
AAAAAGGGHHHH! No!!! Make it stop!
(It melted away the next day and hasn't been seen
since.)
Catching up on two months of mail and work and regathering our
many animals has been a bit overwhelming. We're happy to be home, but sad
to not be living on the boat any more. Strangely, home can seem just as crowded
as the boat, at times.
All our best hopes for the trip were realized. We
really bonded as a family, and had an adventure we'll remember forever. Everyone
came out of it empowered in many ways. We've always been a pretty close family,
but I have to say that after the trip, the affection really flowed. Lots of
hugs, even still. And I think Lilly and I, having gone through this intense
experience of relying on each other so much each day, have new love and
appreciation for each other. I keep thinking of the passage from Nassau to
Bimini, when we had to do an all-nighter, and Lilly came up at 1 AM to tell me
to get some sleep, and she took the tiller and steered us on for several hours
through that dark night. Wow.
We returned just at the beginning of the
girls' spring break, which was lucky, as they both have some schoolwork to catch
up on. They've gotten to see some friends, but haven't had to deal with
re-entry to the full chaos of school yet. We left that extra week of padding in
there in case we really got socked in by weather. If we hadn't crossed back from
Bimini when we did, we would have used up the cushion. I think we pushed it a
bit too much crossing on the day we did -- hindsight being 20/20. Better to have
an easy crossing and get home late, but that's a hard decision to
make.
I'm planning out a new and stronger rudder system, which will
probably take a while to get built. Thicker blade, thicker rudder cheek, heavier
pintles and gudgeons, larger aluminum backing plate for the side of the blade
that isn't against the cheek.
Aside from that, there isn't too much
different we would've done in our preparations. Buying a bimini might be on the
list -- the sun exposure was pretty oppressive at times -- but before we left
for this trip we were completely spent out and couldn't have afforded one
anyway. Maybe a year or two down the road. The polytarp awning I made is
complicated to set up and take down, and can only be used at anchor, not while
sailing, so it's not ideal.
We did return with a lot of excess food, but
we figured we would. Better to have too much than to run out. So we'll be eating
our home-canned stews for a while yet.
What else is on my "boat"
list?
-- New water hand pump (our old one cracked internally and leaked
incessantly).
-- Larger wheels & tires for the trailer. I had 1 blowout
on the way down, and 2 on the way back. We're hauling nearly 5000 lbs. on four
175/80/R13 tires -- two of which are load range D (1610 lbs), and two of which
are load range C (1360 lbs). Works in theory, but not in practice. Two of the
blowouts were C, and one was D. I'd like to get some 15" wheels and tires rated
to 2150 lbs or so. That's an expensive change, but it's also expensive buying
new tires to replace our blowouts. . . . I just need to do some measuring to see
if we'll still have room for the trailer shocks to move properly.
-- Oh yeah:
put up that USCG-required oil placard. . . .
I'm itching to get back to
the Bahamas, but it may not happen for a decade or so, until our girls go off to
college. Clearing that amount of time with work and school, and getting all our
animals taken care of, was almost impossible. We do joke often now -- whenever
it's cold, or we have to deal with anything unpleasant -- "Quick! Back into the
boat! Back to the Bahamas!" We may try a Florida Keys trip in a few
years, and just squeeze it into a couple of weeks during a school
break.
Not much else I can think of now. Got to get that rudder
built, and get our lives sorted out here. We will go to Cape Cod in late July,
and maybe a boys' fishing trip in Maine in August.
Here's a shot of our bent rudder blade. The lower
pintle is bent, too.
